Satellite navigation—Amazing technology but insidious risk: Why everyone needs to understand space weather

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are one of the technological wonders of the modern world. Popularly known as satellite navigation, these systems have provided global access to precision location and timing services and have thereby stimulated advances in industry and consumer services, including all forms of transport, telecommunications, financial trading, and even the synchronization of power grids. But this wonderful technology is at risk from natural phenomena in the form of space weather. GNSS signals experience a slight delay as they pass through the ionosphere. This delay varies with space weather conditions and is the most significant source of error for GNSS. Scientific efforts to correct these errors have stimulated billions of dollars of investment in systems that provide accurate correction data for suitably equipped GNSS receivers in a growing number of regions around the world. This accuracy is essential for GNSS use by aircraft and ships. Space weather also provides a further occasional but severe risk to GNSS: an extreme space weather event may deny access to GNSS as ionospheric scintillation scrambles the radio signals from satellites, and rapid ionospheric changes outstrip the ability of error correction systems to supply accurate corrections. It is vital that GNSS users have a backup for such occasions, even if it is only to hunker down and weather the storm.